THE REACH OF WAR: KABUL; U.S. Woman and Girl, 12, Die In Attack by Afghan Bomber

By CARLOTTA GALL

Published: October 24, 2004

A suicide bomber killed himself, an American woman and a 12-year-old girl and wounded five people on a busy tourist street here on Saturday afternoon, apparently in an attempt to attack international peacekeepers.

Three soldiers and two children were wounded, police and military officials said.

The death of the American was confirmed by Maj. Mark McCann, a spokesman for the American military in Kabul.

[The Associated Press identified her as Jamie Michalsky, 23. The news agency reported that her stepfather, Dan Everson, said the family learned of her death from her employer, Worldwide Language Resources. Calls to the Maine-based company by The A.P. were not returned Saturday.

[Mr. Everson said Ms. Michalsky, who grew up in Cokato, Minn., had served in Afghanistan with the Army Reserves for about a year until late last year, and had recently been in Uzbekistan for a translating job. She had traveled to Afghanistan to visit a doctor and had been shopping in Kabul on Saturday, he said.]

The attack, which the Taliban claimed responsibility for, broke the uneasy calm that has held since the presidential elections on Oct. 9, when the police and the military were on high alert for suicide or car bombers.

The blast in the heart of the capital was another indication that the Taliban movement and other militants are determined to continue their insurgency and violent attacks against foreign troops and Afghan government police and officials.

Suicide attacks are not particularly common in Afghanistan, but there have been half a dozen in Kabul in the past year.

The bomber attacked on one of the busiest streets in Kabul, Chicken Street, which is often bustling with foreigners shopping for carpets, jewelry and antiques. His target appears to have been soldiers of the International Security Assistance Force who had just gotten out of their car outside a carpet shop.

At the scene shortly after the attack, the body of a bearded man lay on the sidewalk, with both arms blown off and entrails spilling out.

Gen. Baba Jan, Kabul's chief of police, said the bomber had strapped six hand grenades to his chest but that only three had detonated.

''He intended to kill himself,'' said Zabiullah, 30, a witness who runs a jewelry shop near where the explosion occurred. ''I was 30 meters away. The soldiers had just parked their car and were outside a carpet shop. Their soldiers were bleeding from head wounds. They had a second car and took the wounded away, driving in a panic up on the sidewalk.''

He and other Afghans ferried the civilians to hospitals, Mr. Zabiullah said. The 12-year-old girl, identified only as Fariba, died on arrival at Kabul's Emergency Hospital, a witness said. Her body was driven from the hospital on Saturday evening accompanied by her father.

She and the two wounded children, a boy and a girl, had been selling carpets and books on Chicken Street.

''It was our mujahedeen who did it,'' said a Taliban spokesman, Abdul Latif Hakimi, in an interview.

Despite threats to disrupt the election process, the Taliban did not mount any serious attacks on election day, but have claimed responsibility for attacks that have occurred around the country since then.

Until Saturday, most had been in the more remote regions in the south and southeast of the country.

On Monday, five Afghans were killed in a roadside explosion in Paktika Province. On Wednesday, three American soldiers and their interpreter were wounded in an explosion in southeastern Afghanistan. Two American servicemen were also killed in accidents this week.

President Hamid Karzai is leading in the election, with a 37 percent point lead over his nearest rival, and looks as if he will win in the first round.